1

INTRODUCTION

Rape is devastating. Women who have been raped may experience anxiety disorders, depression, somatic disorders, sexual dysfunction, obsessivecompulsive disorders, addictions, loss of self-esteem, financial problems, and
many of the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, and they do so to a
greater extent than the victims of other violent crimes (Boudreaux, Kilpatrick,
Resnick, Best, & Saunders, 1998; Cluss, Broughton, Frank, Stewart, & West,
1983; Emm & McKenry, 1988; Frank & Anderson, 1987; Goodman, Koss, &
Russo, 1993; Kilpatrick et al., 1989; Orlando & Koss, 1983; Rhodes, Ebert, &
Meyers, 1993; Spitzberg & Rhea, 1999; E. A. Walker, Katon, Roy-Byrne,
Jemelka, & Russo, 1993; E. A. Walker et al., 1995). Rape victims are sometimes even blamed for their own victimization (C. Jones &. Aronson, 1973).
There is no doubt that a reduction in the frequency of rape would prevent
much human suffering.
Everyone agrees that reducing the incidence of rape is a worthy goal,
but the consensus about rape generally stops there. Few topics have generated more heated debate in the social science literature. Controversies abound
in analyses of legal and policy issues, psychological and psychiatric studies of
the characteristics of rapists, evaluations of the outcome of treatment for
rapists, investigations of sexual motivations underlying rape, explorations of
the causal role of pornography and childhood sexual abuse, and so on. This

book is about a small part of this contentious literature, that concerned with
scientific studies investigating individual differences in male propensity to
rape.
Studies of individual differences have produced some consistent and
replicable findings. Psychologists know a great deal about the personal characteristics that distinguish or fail to distinguish rapists from other offenders
and from other men. They also know that some convicted rapists are more
likely than others to commit sexual offenses once again, and they can identify these men reliably. This knowledge has important practical implications.
For example, the danger convicted offenders pose to the community can be
assessed quite accurately, and judicious decisions can be made regarding their
need for treatment, the timing of their release, the conditions of their supervision in the community, and so on (Quinsey, Lalumiere, Rice, & Harris,
1995). This information, if used properly, may lead to the prevention of many
rapes.
Studies of individual differences also have important implications for
developing and testing explanations about why men rape. An explanation
that said, for example, that young men who have difficulty meeting and dating women are more likely than others to commit rape could not be true if it
were found that sexually coercive men are actually quite successful at dating.
Theories about the causes of rape must be consistent with what is known
about individual differences.
Our goal in writing this book is to bring to the forefront and integrate
some of the recent important scientific findings about men who rape. Theorizing about rape has had an unfortunate history of being unconstrained by
empirical knowledge, sometimes with harmful practical consequences. To
continue the same example, if one believed that some men are sexually coercive because they have poor interpersonal skills and have difficulties obtaining dates, it might make sense to teach such men dating skills in the hope
that they could develop satisfying relationships. But if rapists are actually
already quite skilled at getting dates, and if dating frequency were in fact a
risk factor for rape, such training for rapists might actually cause harm by
increasing the likelihood of rape.
It is likely that prevention and treatment strategies will be successful to
the extent that they are grounded in sound explanations. Perhaps because of
the lack of empirically supported theories, current treatment programs for
sexual offenders have not produced encouraging results (see reviews in R. K.
Hanson et al., 2002; Quinsey, Harris, Rice, & Lalumiere, 1993; M. E. Rice
& Harris, 2003b), and some programs even seem to increase the likelihood
that sex offenders will reoffend once released (e.g., Quinsey, Khanna, &
Malcolm, 1998). Of course, the link between understanding a phenomenon and controlling or preventing it is not always straightforward. Some
phenomena are well understood but little can be done to alter them (e.g.,
weather patterns), whereas others, such as headaches, are poorly under4

THE CAUSES OF RAPE

stood (at least until recently) but easily remediable. As we will discuss later
in this book, it is quite likely that many rapes could be prevented by reducing the use of alcohol among dating partners, even without knowing much
about why some men rape in the first place. Nevertheless, we believe that a
good understanding of a phenomenon greatly increases the chance of successful intervention and prevention strategies.
What influences men's propensity to rape ? In this book we review major empirical developments in the study of individual differences in male
propensity to rape in five areas of research that have proved to be the most
productive and conclusive: (a) antisociality and (b) mating effort (chap. 4),
(c) atypical sexual interest or paraphilia (chap. 5), (d) psychopathology (chap.
6), and (e) contextual factors (chap. 7). Because of the strong link between
antisociality and mating effort, these two topics are covered in the same chapter. Throughout the book we examine the possible sources of individual differences reliably associated with rape, making use of recent conceptual and
empirical developments in the study of the origins and the development of
antisocial behavior, mating strategies, and anomalous sexual interests.
The field of sex offender research and clinical practice has made little
use of recent empirical and theoretical advances in the study of antisocial
behavior. Because sex offenders are often considered to be a separate type of
criminal, assessment and treatment practices have been little influenced by
successful practices in criminology. In this book we argue that rapists share
many characteristics with other violent offenders and that most rapists are
often violent in nonsexual ways. It follows, then, that understanding the
development of antisocial tendencies more generally can have important
consequences for understanding rape. On the basis of our recent theoretical
work on the origins of delinquency (Quinsey, Skilling, Lalumiere, & Craig,
2004), we explain that there are three general developmental pathways to
antisocial conduct, including sexually coercive behavior, each with different
proximal and ultimate causes.
But before turning our full attention to individual differences, we cover
two important areas of research on rape and sexual coercion to provide a
more general background for our review and synthesis. Rape is not a uniquely
Western contemporary phenomenon and is not even unique to the human
species. Indeed, rape has been documented in many cultures over different
historical periods, and similar behaviors, often labeled forced copulation, have
been observed in many other species. In chapter 2 we examine the historical
and ethnographic literature on rape. This sometimes puzzling literature provides a glimpse of the individual factors and social conditions that facilitated
rape across cultures and time. We also briefly examine recent remarkable
changes in the incidence of sexual assaults in North America.
In chapter 3 we examine in detail individual differences associated with
forced copulation in other species. Some readers may have heard, at least
anecdotally, of sexually aggressive behavior in scorpion flies, mallards, and
INTRODUCTION

orangutans, three often-cited species. There is a great deal of good scientific

work on forced copulation in many different species, but very little of it is
known outside of biology. We identify various mating strategies that underlie and promote the use of forced copulation, strategies that vary from species
to species. In some bird species, males that are successful at forming a pair
bond force copulation opportunistically on female neighbors. In other species, males that are at a disadvantage in competition for mates resort to forceful
mating tactics. These are two of the five main strategies we have identified
that describe the use of forced copulation in the species studied so far.
All five strategies have close parallels in the arguments that have been
used to explain human rape, and a dispassionate consideration of the theoretical and empirical grounds for inferring the existence of these strategies in
nonhuman animals may facilitate evaluation of their relevance, if any, to
humans. Our goal, however, is not to develop an animal model of human
rape or, worse, to naturalize, trivialize, or excuse human rape. Rather, our
goal is to provide a general overview of what is known about forced copulation in the animal world, to introduce concepts that are important when it
comes to understanding the sources of individual differences among humans
and other species, and to place the study of rape in a wider scientific context.
In chapter 8 we review the literature on the clinical assessment and
treatment of rapists. In chapter 9, we provide a synthesis of the book and
discuss the implications of some of the findings and hypotheses presented in
this book for new practical developments in the assessment and treatment of
rapists.
We hope that this book moves the study of rape forward by revealing
consilience among several disparate lines of scientific inquiry and by providing new ways of looking at coercive sex among humans. Ultimately, we hope
that our analysis leads to improvements in the prevention of rape and the
treatment of rapists so as to reduce the prevalence of sexual coercion.

THE CAUSES OF RAPE